Many wireless communication technology standards, such as the original Bluetooth® standard and its variants (e.g., the Bluetooth® Low Energy, or BLE, standard), facilitate creation of communication connections between pairs of devices using announcement or advertising data packets, messages, or other signals. In some communication standards, for example, an electronic device may transmit such signals wirelessly while in an announcing or advertising mode (e.g., “discoverable” mode in the Bluetooth® standard) to make nearby devices aware of the presence of the announcing device. In response to those announcements or advertisements, another device may then attempt to create a communication connection with the announcing device by way of bidirectional exchange of device identities and/or capabilities, encryption/decryption keys, and other information with the electronic device to create a secure communication connection therebetween.
Typically, an electronic device is placed into its announcing or advertising mode in response to some user input received via a user interface, such as the press of a button or touch of an area on a touchscreen. However, some electronic devices that employ a wireless communication technology either do not provide a tactile user interface, or simply cannot be accessed physically during normal operation. One such class of device is the implantable medical device. Examples of implantable medical devices include, but are not limited to, automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillators (AICDs), cardiac pacemakers, spinal cord stimulation (SCS) devices, deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices, and implantable loop recorders (ILRs), such as implantable cardiac monitors (ICMs) and subcutaneous atrial fibrillation (AF) monitors. Such devices often employ wireless communication to connect with an external computer system to receive configuration information, commands, and so on, and to transmit operational status, logged events, and the like. Such devices, when implanted in a human body, are not physically accessible, nor preferable using physical external input such as pressure with tapping, and thus do not provide a tactile or physical interface to facilitate placing the device into an announcing or advertising mode to establish wireless communication with another device.
With the above aspects in mind, as well as others not explicitly discussed herein, various embodiments of an electronic device employing wireless communication, such as an implantable medical device, as well as methods of operating such a device, are disclosed herein.